Don't feel guilty if you don't find time to read the Platform for Prosperity — that roll-off- the-tongue PFP — or whatever Colorado Republicans are calling their unity platform these days.

This is your basic political document — and I don't mean that in a good way — in which Republicans from Tom Tancredo to Josh Penry to Bill Owens to Scott McInnis can pretend to agree on issues great and small. They can pretend to agree because the document isn't actually about real issues.

This is what we call boilerplate.

Cut taxes. Cut fees. Cut spending. Improve education. Improve roads.

Don't say how you intend to pay for any of it.

Don't cite a single thing that you would actually cut yourself.

Extras

Take the expected dig at Planned Parenthood in the non-prosperity sweepstakes. Take a dig at Bill Ritter's executive order on state-worker unionization, which, as some of us predicted, has had approximately no impact on anything. Take a dig at "stimulus" bills and "federal spending bills that serve no valid economic purpose," as if you intend to give back a nickel of federal spending.

It's a stunt — but I don't mean that in a bad way.

Once again, Republicans have been able to come together around a single candidate — if you don't include Dan Maes, and most don't. Of course, anointing candidates has not worked out so well for Republicans recently. But some habits are apparently hard to break.

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And Ritter — whose political learning curve has been, let's say, steep — has left himself apparently vulnerable to a legitimate challenger. The question is whether Republicans can take advantage.

What is significant about the PFP is not what's in it, but what's not in it — which is anything remotely new.

As far as I can tell after reading the platform, this is the Republican two- part plan for a comeback:

First, there's the unspoken admission that Republicans blew it with independents by focusing on illegal immigration and gays and bestiality and whatever else Dave "Let's Roll" Schultheis and friends had on their minds.

Second, there's the oft-repeated promise to return to smaller government. At this point, the economy is so bad Republicans figure if they can pin it on Ritter, voters will be sorry they ever threw them out and will agree to gratefully return them to power — as if, back when they had the power, they meant to put money that "rainy day" fund, but just forgot.

The premise is that Coloradans aren't interested in hearing anything new about the state's dysfunctional budget system, that they don't care about the inherent friction between TABOR and, say, Amendment 23, that they're happy to endure one budget crisis after another.

Give credit to the state Republican leadership for realizing that the Palin-Beck wing of the party doesn't sell here. But that doesn't leave them problem-free.

First, there's McInnis the candidate, who doesn't take criticism well, who doesn't like to be reminded that he doesn't take criticism well, and who also doesn't like to be reminded that he can be criticized for changing his mind on issues that seem to be important to the Republican base.

Then there's the economy, which — and here's a wild prediction — is going to improve because, historically, that's what poor economies do. If the election were held today, the Republicans might win on the economy, even if George W. Bush was president when the whole thing cratered.

But the election is nearly a year from today. And you have to wonder if voters are ready to believe Penry — the ex-quarterback who was strong-armed from the race — when he writes, in announcing his support of McInnis: "The Democratic monopoly in Denver has helped usher in the worst economy in 60 years."

Penry didn't point to any states with Republican monopolies that have done better during the national recession. He didn't say whether Colorado's unemployment rate — three points under the national rate — is Ritter's doing or holdover Republican work or simply due to the fact of Colorado's business fundamentals.

But the biggest problem facing Republicans is the same one facing Democrats — the perennial budget crisis. It's almost funny to hear McInnis ripping Ritter for some of his more unfortunate budget cuts.

What would McInnis cut? We are now down to cutting K-12 education. Higher ed, meanwhile, is being propped up by federal stimulus money — the same money Republicans insist they don't want and money that, in any case, won't last. Maybe McInnis missed what happened in California, where public universities just raised tuition by 32 percent.

Our system doesn't work anymore. That's why I'm guessing that modifying TABOR becomes the major issue of the 2010 gubernatorial race.

What will that mean? You won't find this anywhere in the Platform for Prosperity, but on the same day that Republicans won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, voters in Maine and Washington were rejecting versions of TABOR. You could look it up.

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